Originally published by Post Gazette
Chartiers Valley High School senior Joel Chavez keeps busy taking five advanced-placement courses, working part-time at Office Max and preparing for applications for college, where he hopes to study computer engineering.
But for one evening last Wednesday, instead of poring over homework or college website, he was seated at a round table with volunteer legal professionals, preparing an application that would keep him legally here in the United States for another two years.
Joel was one of a small group of young people in a similar predicament at a legal clinic, held at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Beechview. They are teens and young adults known as “Dreamers,” who were brought without legal status to the United States at an early age when their parents immigrated here. Their long-term status was put in question on Sept. 5 when President Donald Trump rescinded legal protections for them in an executive order issued by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Nearly 690,000 people have legal status under DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Nearly 90 percent are from Mexico or Central America.
Joel originally got his DACA status in 2015. He is among those DACA status comes up for renewal before March 5. That date is the cutoff for for seeking renewal, making them the last of the Dreamers eligible to extend their DACA status for another two years under the rules instituted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to implement Mr. Trump’s phase-out of DACA.
But these Dreamers have only until Oct. 5 to get their renewal applications, along with accompanying documents such as birth certificates or proofs of residence, to the U.S. government.
By the end of the evening, with his application in order and ready to send, Joel was relieved.
“It’s nice because I get to have a job. I get to apply for college,” he said. “I can be like any other student in my school.”
At the legal clinic was one of three last week, and it drew a fleet of lawyers and paralegals, with laptops and a portable photocopier in tow, working pro bono. The clinics were organized by several groups, among them the immigrant advocacy group Casa San Jose and the immigration arm of Jewish Family and Children’s Service.
Various groups had been enlisting volunteers for legal services and providing scholarships to ease the burden of filing fees.
Volunteers said they were motivated by their opposition to the impact on young people of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“We feel it’s just not fair,” said Nate Richardson, who volunteered along with his wife and fellow attorney, Padma Richardson. Neither specialize in immigration law, but they know their way around complex sets of legal documents and wanted to help. “These kids, through no fault of their own, are being punished,” Mr. Richardson said.
Ultimately, he said he believes bias is behind this crackdown. “We feel it’s because of the color of their skin.”
Joel came to the United States when he was about four. His father, David, came here on a visa in 2004 after a couple years of unsuccessfully looking for a new job in Mexico after losing his previous one as an electrical engineer.
Family contacts eventually brought the family to Pittsburgh, and Mr. Chavez has a pending application for a green card — a process with a backlog of many years. His 15-year-old daughter also has DACA status, and a younger one is a U.S.-born citizen.
Mr. Trump, after rescinding DACA, called on Congress to pass legislation that would reach the same result as the executive order, whose constitutionality was being challenged.
For Joel, the United States is the only country he’s ever known. And he’s still optimistic Congress will take up the issue.
“It does make me kind of nervous,” he said. Waiting for the much-anticipated announcement about DACA on Sept. 5 was “pretty nerve-wracking. But “I feel things are going to get better. I don’t think it will be completely eliminated.”
One of the reasons for that optimism: the Chavez family’s neighbors — friends of the family for as long as he can remember — are ardent Trump supporters. But because they know him and his situation, he said, they want him and those in similar situations to stay.
And as attorney Vanessa Caruso and paralegal Allison Rowland helped Joel with the application, they also told the family to stay in touch, particularly if any crises come up.
“No matter what you can always call me and Allison, even if it’s the middle of the night,” Ms. Rowland said. “You’re young and bright. You deserve a good future.”
Hortencia Ortiz, 18, of Beechview also can barely remember her native Mexico, having moved to America at age 3.
“It’s kind of hectic, nerve-wracking” getting the documents together to renew her DACA status, she said. But she’s hopeful. She recently graduated from high school in the Philadelphia area and is working at a relative’s restaurant here while she looks at colleges to attend.
Sister Janice Vanderneck, director of civic engagement for Casa San Jose, said she hopes DACA protections can be put into law.
“We’re really hoping the U.S. Congress passes the Dream Act without funding for a border wall,” she said.
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